The Vancouver Canucks learned something about their group this weekend, they are far from being taken seriously in the NHL

The fans of other NHL teams might be looking forward to the playoffs but Vancouver Canucks fans will always have the draft lottery. Speaking of things which always disappoint, here are the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.

• In his press availability before Saturday night’s meeting with the Vegas Golden Knights, Travis Green said: “We’re going to learn something about our group tonight.”

Well, it’s nothing we didn’t already know. The Canucks have to upgrade five, maybe six spots in their lineup before they can be taken seriously. For stretches of their season, rookie sensation Elias Pettersson, goalie Jacob Markstrom and a decent team game have camouflaged their shortcomings. But Pettersson isn’t scoring these days, Markstrom can’t bail them out every night and their lack of depth has become increasingly obvious.

The result? Four wins in 17 games, only one of which came in regulation, and another lost campaign.

The newly-signed Quinn Hughes represents one of the upgrades. It also figures a couple of other improvements will come in-house either through young players currently with the Canucks — Adam Gaudette, Jake Virtanen — or their other prospects.

But they still have to add an impact player on their blueline and at least one other upfront and that’s scary because history has taught us free agency isn’t the place to solve your problems.

This time, however, the Canucks don’t have much choice in the matter and have to make things happen now. After spending four seasons in the NHL’s root cellar, they can’t possibly ask their fan base to endure another 27th-place finish.

• Another Canucks’ season has again been sabotaged by injuries which raises the question: Do they have to start limiting the workload on some of their key players?

Load management — sitting a star player who’s otherwise healthy — has suddenly become the new normal in the NBA. Pitch count has long been an accepted practice in MLB. NFL teams limit the carries of star running backs.

Would something similar work in the NHL?

Obviously, the team that went down this path would be fighting the game’s tradition and that’s putting it mildly. But in each of the last four seasons the Canucks have lost Alex Edler, Chris Tanev and Sven Baertschi for significant stretches and it’s killed them.

Don’t know if selective games off is the answer. Do know that playing Edler 28 minutes a night is asking for trouble.

• You likely have your own opinion on Jim Benning as a general manager but if the Aquilinis are looking to make a change, the best candidate was watching the game on Saturday night: Vegas assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon.

• Mad props to Vancouver’s Rachel Cliff who set a Canadian record at the Nagoya Women’s Marathon in Japan on Saturday in her second-ever marathon.

Cliff, who’ll try to qualify in the 10,000 metres at the Tokyo Olympics, shattered the existing mark by over a minute. That record was established in 2013. The previous mark had stood for 28 years.

In this April 16, 1954, file photo, Detroit Red Wings captain Ted Lindsay hugs the Stanley Cup after his team defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-3, in a sudden death extra period to win the Stanley Cup.File /
AP

• Thought about a lot of things when Ted Lindsay passed away early last week but this one will forever be stuck in my memory bank.

In the fall of 1966, my family drove from Toronto to Detroit to take in a Red Wings-Canadiens old-timers game which featured my uncle, Joe Carveth, and 10 Hall of Famers including Gordie Howe — who was still five years away from his first retirement with the Wings — Lindsay, the Rocket, Jacques Plante and Dickie Moore.

Again, this was an old-timers game and a charity fundraiser and Lindsay and Moore, who were at each other’s throats for a decade in the NHL, still managed to get into a fight in the first period.

My dad said he wasn’t surprised.

In this May 7, 2012, file photo, sports writer Dan Jenkins speaks after receiving the lifetime achievement award during the World Golf Hall of Fame inductions at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla. Jenkins, the sports writing great and best-selling author known for his humor, has died. He was 89. TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati confirmed Jenkins died Thursday, March 7, 2019, in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.Will Dickey /
AP

• And finally, a lifetime ago, when I was first considering sports journalism as a career option, a friend gave me a copy of Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins.

I’ve since read the book about 25 times. Actually, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact number because, for a couple of years, I kept it by the bed stand and thumbed through it to my favourite parts.

These include Billy Clyde Puckett, the New York Giants running back and the hero of the tale, describing his hangover on Super Bowl Sunday and the memorable wedding night of T.J. Lambert, the ferocious Giants’ defensive tackle and champion gas-passer.

There’s another one involving Lambert and a group of cadets from Texas A&M which I can’t possibly recount here but if you’ve read the book, you know the passage I’m referencing.

OK, high art it wasn’t. But it was profane, liberating, honest and endlessly hilarious and it changed everything, like an aspiring guitar player hearing Are You Experienced? for the first time.

The idea wasn’t to write like Jenkins. Are you nuts? No one could write like the Texan. But he gave everyone who followed in his enormous wake license to try new things, to develop their own true voice and if people actually liked that voice, maybe you were on to something.

Flash forward to the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach and I saw my hero dining on a Winston while waiting for the media shuttle. I’d mostly given up the devil nicotine at that point but, you know, it was Dan Jenkins and, clearly, he would benefit from my company. I lit up and we talked about Tiger Woods’ performance. Jenkins, who was close to Ben Hogan, allowed he hadn’t seen anything like Woods in his three decades of covering golf.

We got on the shuttle. In a rare moment of self-control, I didn’t ask him to autograph my press pass. The five minutes was enough.

We lost Jenkins on Thursday, lost one of the finest humorists of the last century. He leaves behind a staggering legacy and the following timeless advice to all scribes: “Type fast, get it done and go to a bar.”

He was 90. If he would have taken care of himself, he could have made it to 91 or maybe 92 but, somewhere, there was a deadline to meet.

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